ESCONDIDO: Jury convicts gang member accused of shooting at police

An Escondido parolee was convicted of felony crimes Tuesday in connection with a Feb. 8 incident in which he was accused of threatening his ex-girlfriend and her young child, then firing a gun at a police officer, a county prosecutor said Wednesday.

A jury convicted Sergio Alejandro Lopez, 25, of two felonies: discharging a firearm in a grossly negligent manner, and being a felon in possession of a firearm, said Deputy District Attorney Cal Logan. He was also convicted of misdemeanor obstruction or delaying of a peace officer.

The jury acquitted Lopez on four felony charges, including making criminal threats, assault on a peace officer with a semi-automatic firearm, and resisting an executive officer, Logan said.

"We respect the verdicts that the jurors made," Logan said Wednesday. "We believe they diligently considered the evidence presented, and while we didn't get conviction of all the counts, we are satisfied with the outcome."

Logan added that Lopez pleaded guilty early in the trial last month to a misdemeanor count of violating a stay-away order.

A documented gang member who has two prior strikes and serious felony priors, Lopez could face life in prison, Logan said. A sentencing hearing is scheduled Dec. 5.

Lopez was accused of threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend and firing two rounds at an Escondido police officer Feb. 8. He escaped a police perimeter around an Escondido mobile-home park that night and fled to Mexico.

Mexican authorities arrested him and turned him over to U.S. marshals in May.

During Lopez's preliminary hearing in Vista Superior Court in July, Escondido police officers testified that in February, Lopez's frightened ex-girlfriend came to the police station with her 5-year-old daughter to ask for protection.

She told them Lopez had threatened to shoot her in her car.

Officer Shauna Grisler testified that the ex-girlfriend showed investigators threatening text messages she said were from Lopez.

Lopez called the ex-girlfriend Feb. 8 to report a call from Lopez in which he described to the ex-girlfriend what her mother was wearing and what her bedroom looked like. The ex-girlfriend said she didn't think Lopez had ever been to her mother's mobile home before, leading her to believe he was there.

Lopez also told her that if police came for him, he would take one of them out with him, Grisler and other officers testified.

Police rushed to the mobile-home park where the ex-girlfriend's mother lived in the 1300 block of Oak Hill Drive and set up a perimeter around the area. They entered and found Lopez, who fired two shots.

No officers were not injured.

Police searched door-to-door for Lopez for about 16 hours, calling off the search the next day.

According to past reports, Lopez had two strikes on his record: one for beating two men with a baseball bat in 2005, and the second for stabbing a man in 2006, according to court documents. He spent a few months in jail and less than 3 1/2 years in prison for those attacks, according to records from court and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

He was also charged with resisting arrest at least three times since he was arrested in 2005 for methamphetamine possession, according to court documents.

Lopez was last released from prison in August 2011 after serving a six-month sentence for violating his parole; he had committed misdemeanor domestic violence against his then-girlfriend in October 2010, according to records.

Lopez was listed in an Escondido street gang injunction, a civil order that restricts documented gang members from engaging in any gang-related activity, including wearing gang colors or hanging out with other gang members in certain parts of town.